Cardo Scala G-4 Ear Bud modification

Apologies for coming straight in with a question. I looked around the site and couldnt see a "Hello" thread.

I used to love and ride trail bikes, DT 125, XL185, KL250, Honda Dominator, XT500 and the best of all, KLX650 (Had 3 of 'em.....what a cracking bike!) Being a bit short in the leg meant the KLX was a bit of a handfull. After months of changes I was able to get the seat height down to a more acceptable level. Now I ride a Harley and love it just as much as the trailies I have owned.

Now, to the case in point. This modification to the G4 is exactly what I want but I dont feel confident enough to do it myself. JetGrl clearly has the mod down to a fine art. Respect!

The question I have is whether this mod can be done by someone on the UK? Does anyone know of a suitable outlet?

I have a spare G4 speaker set and would be happy to send it away to get it done.

Apologies for coming straight in with a question. I looked around the site and couldnt see a "Hello" thread.

I used to love and ride trail bikes, DT 125, XL185, KL250, Honda Dominator, XT500 and the best of all, KLX650 (Had 3 of 'em.....what a cracking bike!) Being a bit short in the leg meant the KLX was a bit of a handfull. After months of changes I was able to get the seat height down to a more acceptable level. Now I ride a Harley and love it just as much as the trailies I have owned.

Now, to the case in point. This modification to the G4 is exactly what I want but I dont feel confident enough to do it myself. JetGrl clearly has the mod down to a fine art. Respect!

The question I have is whether this mod can be done by someone on the UK? Does anyone know of a suitable outlet?

I have a spare G4 speaker set and would be happy to send it away to get it done.

Grateful for any advice on this.

Once again, apologies for not saying Hi, elsewhere.

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I would imagine that an appliance repair or computer repair shop could perform this modification without many problems, especially if you printed out the pictorial instructions and took it to them...<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>Just not too sure how much they would charge...<o></o><o></o>Do you know anybody that works as a technician anywhere? I personally work at an electric utility company, and know that most of my associates could perform this mod...<o></o>

FXRS.... I had never tried to solder anything in my life. Well, until this little project. I bought a soldering iron for $11, I bought 4 of the 3.5 mm plugs. (I have 2 units and my bud has 2), I bought 26 gauge wire (3 colors) and a micro set of the torx drivers. It would be cheaper to send it to jetgirl than to do it yourself. Unless you plan on doing 4 like me. The project was very easy. And I feel like I learned a new skill. My advise is practice your soldering first, use GOOGLE, and don't try any wires larger than 26 gauge.

NEW QUESTION... does anyone have a good speaker replacement that is already wired to a plug? perhaps a small headphone set that comes apart easily and can take the place of the scala speakers?

but im beginning to think that is not going to work. i have tried every wire combination but only get left audio. the right ear bud works, and it switches if i tweak it just right. i was worried i fried something, but i think its all good.

Thanks Jetgrl.
nope never heard of Fry's, im pretty good at ebay though. I'm in Canada. i figured it was the jack, because my soldering was so perfect! i might be able to find a radioshack. at least i know i didnt cook anything.

You're a good sport JetGrl. Personally, I would just send you mine and I may just do that. I was PCB builder as a child. As everything has gotten smaller over the years so has my patience. Oh, and my eyesight.

I get them from a place called onlinecomponents. Just Google the part number "Philmore 504k" and you can find it.

The picture of the open one you showed is a switched socket, the switch opens when the jack is plugged in. It has 4 connection points.

Eileen

Sent from my Galaxy II S via Tapatalk

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Thanks for the inspiration. I couldn't find the TRS jack that you used, so I use one from a PCP board and mounted it on the underside of the G4. Now, I don't use ear buds, but mounted different helmet speakers---- one's that aren't so tinny. Oh yes, I use the flexible speaker wire to move the boom mike to inside my helmet. I had to add a jack mono jack for the boom mic but it seems to work well. One has to wonder why the heck Cardo doesn't do this out of the box.

Thanks for the inspiration. I couldn't find the TRS jack that you used, so I use one from a PCP board and mounted it on the underside of the G4. Now, I don't use ear buds, but mounted different helmet speakers---- one's that aren't so tinny. Oh yes, I use the flexible speaker wire to move the boom mike to inside my helmet. I had to add a jack mono jack for the boom mic but it seems to work well. One has to wonder why the heck Cardo doesn't do this out of the box.

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Post some pics so we can see how you did the mike... Is the boom secured inside somehow?

Thanks for the inspiration. I couldn't find the TRS jack that you used, so I use one from a PCP board and mounted it on the underside of the G4. Now, I don't use ear buds, but mounted different helmet speakers---- one's that aren't so tinny. Oh yes, I use the flexible speaker wire to move the boom mike to inside my helmet. I had to add a jack mono jack for the boom mic but it seems to work well. One has to wonder why the heck Cardo doesn't do this out of the box.

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What speakers did you use? I have done the earbud mod and it is fantastic but sometimes I want to wear plain old ear plugs and having speakers wired up inside the shell would e great. They are always too thick though and touch my ears and annoys me.

Well, I have a new audio kit coming to me in the mail due to a failed modification of my Scala Q2, where I cut off the speakers and installed the plug for headphones in its place. It worked great for the music, and the other rider's headset can hear me BUT I cannot hear the other rider.

I took it all apart and resoldered yet, no change in end result. There were more wires than I expected... Copper, copper striped red, copper striped green, red, blue, blue striped...

Sure wish I had a schematics diagram for the Q2 Pro.

Do you suppose I should have just taken the ends of the 2 tiny wires going to each speaker and wired just them to the headphone plug that I used? (avoiding all the other wires that were inside there hiding).

Well, I have a new audio kit coming to me in the mail due to a failed modification of my Scala Q2, where I cut off the speakers and installed the plug for headphones in its place. It worked great for the music, and the other rider's headset can hear me BUT I cannot hear the other rider.

I took it all apart and resoldered yet, no change in end result. There were more wires than I expected... Copper, copper striped red, copper striped green, red, blue, blue striped...

Sure wish I had a schematics diagram for the Q2 Pro.

Do you suppose I should have just taken the ends of the 2 tiny wires going to each speaker and wired just them to the headphone plug that I used? (avoiding all the other wires that were inside there hiding).

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I did the modification on the Q2 also, and ran into the same problems... What I ended up doing is separated all the wires and tried ALL the combinations using clip jumpers connecting each of the wires to a headphone jack... Once I got the music playing and could hear it with both right and left ear bud, I then tested it with my Bluetooth phone, and then connected up with the other rider as well until I got the right combination... <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o> <o></o>Good luck with this...<o></o>

I had thought it was the antenna wires that were messing things up, but I can't imagine now. I guess I'll take it apart again and see if I can pair wires up differently. Any advice on colors to match, would be greatly appreciated. I don't understand electronics too much, but have hooked up stereos many times and thought it would be similar. There's striped wires for one side and solid for the other side, then there's those copper ones: one solid copper and one striped copper.

Yup, there are 3 wires to each speaker and the color codes are not consistent in any way. Even if yoi dig into the speakers and see which ones actually attach to them and eliminate the antenna wires you still have to figure out which ones to tie together for common.

I did it, took some time, like 3+ hours... those darn little wires are terrible! Fragile! Too damn tiny!

In the previous posts I had noted what we had soldered together, I had great music and no intercom.
(This was with husband's help because he understands electrical stuff/ham radio/ etc.) Yet, I kept thinking about stereo wires in the back of the power amp when you attach them and things were just confusing in my mind.

So, I took it all apart A.G.A.I.N., determined to figure out the problem. The original mod at the start of this thread was excellent and I knew something in my setup was wrong. Staring at the motherboard and seeing where everything was connected, it just seemed to me to try another approach. Here is what I did and it worked.

PLEASE NOTE: I did NOT solder anything to the motherboard, I just stared at it, and stared at it.
All of my soldering was from the speaker wires to the new earphone plug.

On the motherboard there is...
L-Antenna/ Copper, L+/Green , L- /Red

R-Antenna/Green Stripe , R+/Red Striped , R-/Blue

On my earbuds plug that I am trying to attach to this entire thing so I can use whatever earbuds I want and never have to solder this S.O.B. again.... there are three wires one blue, one red and one copper.

This is what worked:
1. I took the L-Antenna/Copper and attached it to the Copper on the new plug.
2. I left the R-Antenna/Green Stripe alone and did NOT connect it to anything. Leave it hanging.
3. I took the L+/Green and the R+/Red Striped and attached them to the Red on the new plug.
4. I took the L-/Red and the R-/Blue and attached them to the Blue in the new plug.

Music was LOUD.
Intercom was LOUD
The stupid beep that you hear when you turn it on and change channels was loud.
Everything was working and its perfect.

Let the truth be known...
In the beginning of this last wire touching challenge, I had managed to fix the intercom but the music sucked, it was tin can sounding and low volume. I started taking things apart because my solder joints were horrible and they weren't working very well. "WHY?" you may ask. Because I didn't have electrical solder with the flux in the middle... it was down at the marina on the sailboat. I didn't have a 'real' soldering iron, it was also on the boat. and so, I did what any artist would do. I sacrificed my art supplies. I used the lead solder that I use to put together stained glass windows and I used the woodburner iron with a thin woodburner tip. :huh I also used spray on flux from my silversmith supplies. Ok, so it was crazy but seemed to be working, for a while anyway. But, the connections wouldn't hold. Right now, the wires are scraped clean and await the true electrician supplies sometime tomorrow.

Right now, I do know it all works fantastic because some of it was soldered and some of the wires I squeezed together and got the best sound ever from both music and intercom. So I thank everyone that helped, I thank Golevi for putting it all up here with excellent photos which was priceless and I hope what I have added will be enough for others who got stumped with Scala's 3-wire confusion can now try it again and be successful. By tomorrow night, my headset will be completely assembled and ready for next Saturday's long ride over the Bay Bridge to Annapolis Naval Academy with a group of friends! I'm so happy! Oh, I will probably keep the other Scala Audio kit that I bought last night and hook it up to my other helmet with the earbud mod properly done, too.

One piece of advice: Have a beer or two, and stay away from artist stained glass tools and silversmith supplies because there is no substitute for good electrical soldering supplies.